'Is the weather better?' The last words of the doomed pilot of the FlyDubai flight which crashed in Russia killing 62 people
- Chilling audio reveals pilots of doomed Russian flight discussing weather
- Pilot Aristos Sokratous and co-pilot Spaniard Alejandro Álava Cruz heard talking to air traffic controllers for seven minutes about conditions
- The FlyDubai flight crashed at Rostov-on-Don airport killing 62 on board
- Four children, 33 women and 18 men were passengers with seven crew
- See more news from Russia at www.dailymail.co.uk/russia
The final conversation between pilots of a Russian plane that crashed this morning has revealed their concerns over the weather.
A seven-minute recording, allegedly taken from air traffic control tapes, appeared to show the pilots chatting normally to officials as they asked if the weather was better as they made their approach to Rostov-on-Don airport.
Four children were among the 62 people killed when FlyDubai Flight FZ981 plummeted to the ground at around 4am Moscow time.
Cypriot Aristos Sokratous, left, pilot of the FlyDubai flight, and co-pilot Spaniard Alejandro Álava Cruz, can be heard talking to air traffic controllers about the weather ahead of the crash in Russia
Police officers have been searching through the wreckage the airport site with sniffer dogs, pictured
The pilots are asked repeatedly about their visibility and can be heard saying it is around 5km.
The aircraft was piloted by Cypriot Aristos Sokratous and co-pilot Spaniard Alejandro Álava Cruz.
In a conversation that switches between English and Russian, they can be heard asking if there are any changes in conditions and receive regular updates from the ground.
Although they do not seem to panic at any point, their voices can be heard becoming more agitated as the plane descends to an altitude of around 2,000ft.
The flight was predominantly carrying Russian passengers, although eight Ukrainians, two Indians and one person from Uzbekistan were also on board.
The flight was predominantly carrying Russian passengers, although eight Ukrainians, two Indians and one person from Uzbekistan were also on board.
It went up in flames after its tail hit the runway and disintegrated. Pilot error or a technological failure were thought to be the two other main causes being investigated.
Nicos Anastasiade, president of Cyprus, paid tribute to 35-year-old Mr Sokratous, who appears to have got married just last August.
The plane went up in flames after the tail hit the runway, pictured, and disintegrated with an investigation into the cause ongoing
Emergency services have been at the airport all day, with 'hurricane' strength winds blamed for the incident
He said: 'Especially to those close to Aristos Sokratous, the President of the Republic expresses his deepest condolences, and his support towards them.'
FlyDubai would not release any other information about the pilot on Saturday afternoon but his Facebook page suggested he trained at Oxford Aviation Academy in Kidlington, Oxfordshire and liked rock music.
A statement from the airline said: 'We are currently contacting relatives of the passengers and crew who were on board and we are offering any help we can to those affected.'
Officials have been forced to bring in dogs to search for remains at the FlyDubai crash site after the plane was obliterated as it tried to land in 'hurricane-force winds'.
The plane was carrying 55 passengers and seven crew members from Dubai when it crashed as it attempted to land for a second time in bad weather conditions.
Vasily Golubev, the governor of the Rostov region, this afternoon revealed that the plane crashed around 800ft short of the runway.
He added: 'By all appearances, the cause of the air crash was the strongly gusting wind, approaching a hurricane level.'
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Russia: Black boxes from plane crash site are badly damaged
FlyDubai's Boeing 737-800 from Dubai nosedived and exploded in a giant fireball before dawn Saturday after trying to land for a second time in strong winds in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. FlyDubai confirmed all 62 people on the plane were killed. Most of the passengers were Russian.
Several planes had trouble landing at the airport at the time of the crash.
Russian Police and Emergency Ministry employees investigate the wreckage of a crashed plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow,
Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when a plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
The Inter-State Aviation Committee said in a statement that the plane's data and voice recorders had been heavily damaged in the crash.
But Sergei Zaiko, deputy chairman of the committee, was quoted by Russian news agencies late Sunday as saying that the quality of material on the data recorder was high.
The black boxes were being viewed in Moscow by experts from Russia, the United Arab Emirates and France, the aviation commission said. The American-made Boeing plane had French-made engines.
At Rostov-on-Don, hundreds of people flocked Sunday to the airport, the region's largest, to lay flowers and leave candles and toys in memory of the dead. The city is 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow near the Ukrainian border.
Closed-circuit TV footage showed the plane going down at a steep angle and exploding. The powerful explosion left a big crater in the runway.
The airport remained closed, but workers on Sunday afternoon were repairing the damage to the runway, and plans are to reopen on Monday morning, the airport said in a statement.
FlyDubai's chief executive, Ghaith al-Ghaith, said on Sunday the plane had enough fuel to maintain its holding pattern, which reportedly went on for two hours. He expressed confidence in Russian authorities and said the carrier intends to resume flights to the airport once it reopens.
He reiterated that the Rostov-on-Don airport was open Saturday despite the high winds and was "good enough to operate" at the time of the crash, and that it was up to Russian authorities to make that determination.
Some of the crash victims were from rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine where fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government troops has killed more than 9,100 people in nearly two years. The war has turned the region's main airport of Donetsk into a wasteland, and many locals have been using the airport in Rostov-on-Don, across the border.
Self-proclaimed rebel authorities in Donetsk said Sunday that two residents had been killed in the crash, while the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported that a family of three from the rebel-controlled town of Sverdlovsk in Ukraine was among the victims.
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Nataliya Vasilyeva and Jim Heintz in Moscow and Adam Schreck in Dubai contributed to this report.
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A previous version of this story has been corrected to show that the aviation commission didn't say in its statement that U.S. experts were viewing the black boxes.
Russian Emergency Ministry employees investigate the wreckage of a crashed plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when a plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
A woman mourns after putting flowers in memory for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Emergency workers on Sunday finished combing the debris-laden runway of the airport in southern Russia where the plane carrying 62 people crashed before dawn on Saturday. (AP Photo)
Russian Investigative Committee employees, center, and police officers investigate the wreckage of a crashed plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when a plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
A woman mourns after putting flowers in memory for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Emergency workers on Sunday finished combing the debris-laden runway of the airport in southern Russia where the plane carrying 62 people crashed before dawn on Saturday. (AP Photo)
People mourn for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when the plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
Russian Emergency Ministry employees investigate the wreckage of a crashed plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when a plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
People mourn for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when the plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
People, some of them relatives and friends of the victims of the crashed plane comfort each other at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when a plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
People mourn for the victins of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Emergency workers on Sunday finished combing the debris-laden runway of the airport in southern Russia where the plane carrying 62 people crashed before dawn on Saturday. (AP Photo)
A woman mourns after putting flowers in memory for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Emergency workers on Sunday finished combing the debris-laden runway of the airport in southern Russia where the plane carrying 62 people crashed before dawn on Saturday. (AP Photo)
A woman mourns after putting flowers in memory for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Emergency workers on Sunday finished combing the debris-laden runway of the airport in southern Russia where the plane carrying 62 people crashed before dawn on Saturday. (AP Photo)
People mourn for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Emergency workers on Sunday finished combing the debris-laden runway of the airport in southern Russia where the plane carrying 62 people crashed before dawn on Saturday. (AP Photo)
People comfort each other as they mourn for the victims of the crashed FlyDubai plane at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when the plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
People, some of them relatives and friends of the victims of the crashed plane comfort each other at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 20, 2016. Winds were gusting before dawn Saturday over the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don when a plane carrying 62 people from a favorite Russian holiday destination decided to abort its landing. (AP Photo)
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